Table of Contents
You can use gmusicbrowser and Parole Media Player to listen to music on your computer. Parole Media Player may open audio files when they are double-clicked, but gmusicbrowser is better at handling large music collections.
In order to play some popular audio formats like MP3, you will need to install some additional software. Unfortunately, this software cannot be provided by default in Xubuntu due to legal restrictions in some countries.
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Read the section called “Restricted and non-free software” before following the instructions below. There are some legal issues that you should be aware of. |
To be able to play MP3 files in gmusicbrowser, install the package. gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly
Initially, gmusicbrowser will not automatically search for music files on your computer and you will have to manually direct gmusicbrowser to your music files by doing the following:
Open → →
Open the menu (a gear at the top right) and click
In the Settings dialog, go to the Library tab
Click
and choose the directory that contains your music files and press ; your selection will now appear in the Settings dialogIf you wish to add other locations of music files repeat the previous step, or otherwise, press
gmusicbrowser will begin to scan your library. After the Scanning progress bar disappears, you may have to change views (to the left of the search) or restart gmusicbrowser to see your library.
Some music player applications fetch cover art and other information about songs from the internet. However, gmusicbrowser only searches for cover art when you request. Simply right-click the album artwork, and select . You can change the search query or service, but the defaults often work well. Select an image and save it to the album directory.
Sometimes, your music player may not be able to identify a particular song or album correctly. If this is the case, you can add the correct information manually by right-clicking the music file displayed in gmusicbrowser, selecting and entering the appropriate information in the corresponding fields.
If you prefer to search for the image yourself, find an album cover on the internet (or other sources) and save the image as cover.jpg
in the album directory. Additionally, you can drag the cover art onto the cover art placeholder in gmusicbrowser or right-click and select .
Xubuntu will work with most portable audio players, including iPods. Normally, all you have to do is plug the player into your computer and then use File Manager to manually copy songs to and from the player.
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Newer iPods (6th generation and newer) will not work automatically with Xubuntu unless you have done an initial synchronization with iTunes first. |
If you have a portable music player which can also display photos and videos, you may prefer to use Banshee, which is a music player with good support for such devices. iPod owners may also like to try specialized applications such as GPixPod, gtkpod, and ideviceinstaller for handling multimedia.
You can watch movies and video clips with the Parole Media Player.
In order to play DVDs you must install some additional software. Unfortunately, DVD support cannot be provided by default in Xubuntu due to legal restrictions in some countries.
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Read the section called “Restricted and non-free software” before following the instructions below. There are some legal issues that you should be aware of. |
To be able to play DVDs, do the following:
Install the , libdvdnav4
and libdvdread4
packages. gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly
If you would like to play encrypted DVDs, open → → and type the following into the Terminal followed by the key: Enter
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
Enter your password if prompted. The package will be downloaded and installed from a website. libdvdcss2
Insert a DVD into your drive. It should open automatically in the Parole Media Player.
Parole Media Player supports most video types. If you try to play an unsupported video file, Parole Media Player may notify you of a missing plugin. You can then install this plugin by following the wizard. Afterwards, you may need to restart Parole Media Player.
If you are having difficulties getting a video to stream in your browser, Parole Media Player supports streaming most types of video. To open a video in Parole Media Player, right-click the video and select .
Some video formats, such as Adobe Flash, QuickTime and Windows Media Video, are proprietary and so support for them cannot be included in Xubuntu by default. You must install some extra software to allow playback.
In order to play the most common proprietary formats in Parole Media Player or Firefox, install the package (see xubuntu-restricted-extrasthe section called “Restricted and non-free software” for more information).
Xubuntu automatically detects most digital cameras when you plug them in, and will offer to import your photos automatically. To import photos from your camera:
Plug-in and switch on the camera by placing it in review mode. Xubuntu should ask you if you would like to import the photos that the camera contains.
Click on
. You should then see a preview of the photos.Choose a location to save your photos to, then click on
. The photos will be saved to your hard drive.If Xubuntu does not ask you to import the photos, you can do so using gThumb.
Go to → →
Click
→ →Select your camera from Source
You can optionally change Show: to Images to display only your photos
Select the photos you want by holding and clicking on the desired images or clicking Ctrl to select all photos Ctrl+A
Change the Destination, Event, and Tags fields as you please
Click
gThumb provides a complete solution for managing your photo collection. To start it, go to → → . With gThumb, you can import photos from your digital camera or USB stick, tag them with familiar terms, do touch ups, and edit them in different ways. In addition to this, you can upload photos easily to your Flickr, PicasaWeb album and other online photo galleries. For help with gThumb, check out the help by going to → .
If you want to show off your photos in all of their glory, why not run a slideshow of them?
Open → →
Select the directory of photos to view
Click
→Printing your photos is great way to share them with others. To print your photos:
Open the photo you want to print in gThumb
Click
→Select the desired printer
You can then adjust various settings like orientation, image quality, etc. by clicking on the appropriate tabs
When ready, click the
buttonSometimes, you may need to adjust or touch-up a photo to make it look better or to remove some flaw. gThumb includes a few basic tools for doing this. To access these tools, click the Edit File icon (a palette) on the toolbar and then click on one of the tools at the right of the screen.
In addition to editing photos, you sometimes want to resize them. To resize photos:
Open the photo you want to resize in gThumb
On the toolbar, click
→Adjust the Width or Height as appropriate. The image will be kept to scale. If you want to adjust the width and height independently, uncheck the Preserve original aspect ratios box.
Change the Format if you wish
Click
to resize the photoChoose the option for saving the file - you can choose to overwrite or not the old file
Click
to save the resized photoYou can make your own CDs and DVDs by burning files onto a blank disc using the CD or DVD writer drive of your computer.
Xfburn is the default application in Xubuntu to complete these tasks. Xfburn allows you to to easily create audio CDs, burn CDs and DVDs with either plain data or disk images and prepare blank re-writable disks for a new burn.
In order to launch Xfburn, go to → → .
Once launched, you can insert a CD-R(W) or DVD-R(W) you wish to write to and then select the button corresponding to the action you wish to take (
, , etc.).